


I am at my end

by smaragdbird



Series: The Honourable Ones [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Goodbyes, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kallus as part of the Scarif mission, Love Confessions, M/M, Unhappy Ending, rebel!kallus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 04:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9475058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: When Cassian looks for volunteers, Kallus is one of them. But before they leave for Scarif he leaves behind a message for the Ghost crew and for Zeb





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this ](http://rogueonekink.dreamwidth.org/1084.html?thread=507708#cmt507708) prompt

When Cassian had approached him about Scarif Kallus hadn't hesitated. It was a suicide run, Cassian had made that perfectly clear but it was something worth dying for. A planet killer. Once Kallus would've dismissed it as rebel propaganda but since Bahryn he had learned to ask questions. Not just about the Empire but about the Rebellion as well. They were not always better than the Empire but they were sometimes and that was why he had ultimately thrown his lot in with them.

Cassian had given them half an hour to get ready and to grab all the explosives and other materials they thought they would need for a covert attack on a highly protected Imperial base. Zeb would enjoy this Kallus thought as he gathered grenades. But Zeb and the Ghost were on the other side of the galaxy right now. And Kallus didn't want to include them in a suicide mission anyway. Over the past three years they had become his friends even if he had refused to join their crew. His area of expertise, his way of thinking wouldn't mesh well with theirs. Instead he had done for the Rebellion what he had done for the Empire. But he had still met with the Ghost crew whenever they had been on base at the same time.

He should say goodbye. He couldn't com them, that would arouse suspicion but he could leave them a message. Or rather messages. There were things he wanted to say to Zeb that didn't concern the others.

"Zeb, Sabine, Chopper, Hera, Ezra, Kanan", maybe it was petty to greet them in the order of whom he liked best but who was going to call him out on it? "I'm recording this message to say goodbye to you. I have a new mission, one not sanctioned by the Council. I'm going to help a team to infiltrate the Imperial archive on Scarif to steal the plans for a new battle station that has enough power to destroy entire planets. I don't know how much you'll know about it by the time you'll see this. My only hope is that we'll be successful or else the rebellion is over. Should we not succeed I urge you to run and hide. In any case I wanted to thank you, all of you. Despite everything you have become my friends and that is more than I ever expected or deserved. The run on Scarif is a suicide mission. I know that and I volunteered for it. There are things worth dying for. The alternative is surrender and as you well know that is something I have never done and I don't plan on starting now. I wish you all the best for the future whatever it may look like and may the Force be with you."

Kallus rewound the message to see if he had left out anything important. Maybe he came across a little too stoic, too calm about his own death? But no, they knew him. They knew he never backed down once he had made up his mind. 

Saying goodbye to them wasn’t the hard part though, it was saying goodbye to Zeb, to put something into words that they had never bothered to define, not even between the two of them. Kallus took a few moments to gather his thoughts and put them in the right order before he slipped a new disc in the recorder.

"Zeb if you see this I assume you've watched my previous message as well. This one is meant for you alone but of course by now I'll be dead and have no way of stopping you." Kallus smiled a little, imagining that Zeb would start to curse at this point.

"I've never thanked you for Bahryn, not just for saving my life but also for making me start to ask questions. That's how it all started. And then you saved my life again by getting me away from Thrawn. I know you were unhappy that I refused to join your crew. Believe me it was never anything personal. You're very idealistic. You believe in what you fight for but I...once I started questioning I couldn't stop. The rebellion needs people like you, shining examples of justice that lead the cause, but it also needs people like me who do what needs to be done. And what I've done for the Rebellion wasn't any better than what I did for the Empire. I can't even say that I did it for the right reasons because I believe in the Rebellion as much as I believed in the Empire. And that is why I'm going to Scarif. Dying for the Rebellion means I've finally chosen a side. No one can take this from me."

Kallus took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. This had been the easy part, now it was time for the hard one. This was his last chance to say the things he should've said a long time ago.

"We've never defined what our relationship was. I'm not even sure if the rest of your crew knows. I certainly never told anyone else. Why would I? The only person I would've trusted with this kind of information was you." Kallus shook his head. He was getting off target. "What I'm meaning to say is that our relationship means a lot to me. You mean a lot to me, more than anyone else ever did. I sincerely wish that we had had more time together. And if things had been different, if we hadn't started out on different sides of the war then nothing would've stopped me from being with you."

Kallus looked directly into the recorder as if he could see Zeb right in front of him. "I'm not sure this is a good way to say but it is my last chance. I love you. Farwell, Garrazeb Orrelios, and may the Force be with you." Kallus rested one hand over the other and lowered his head like he and Zeb had done on Bahryn. Then he switched the recorder off. It was done. 

He labelled both messages carefully and put them on his desk next to the meteorite. It had stopped glowing ages ago but it still retained the warm golden colour it had had on Bahryn. Zeb had the code for this room, he'd come looking for him if Kallus wasn't here when the Ghost came back. And if the news of his death had already made it back to the base before that then someone else would come in to clean out the room and find the messages. Either way his last words would end up in the hands of those they belonged to.

Kallus looked around one last time. The room was spartan with the only personal item being the meteorite. His bed was neatly made and the room clean and tidy. He didn't want to leave a mess. It was strange knowing he would never come back, even his final defection from the Empire had been more spontaneous than this. But he had made his decision and he wouldn't go back on it now. Still a part of him wished he could've seen the Ghost crew, could've seen Zeb one last time.

Kallus scoffed at his own sentimentality and close the door behind him. He had a shuttle to catch.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me [ here](http://smaragdbird.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


End file.
